Hints for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 Users

These hints are intended for users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Release 7.0. The hints presume that you are using Windows-98SE, Windows-ME, Windows-NT, Windows-2000, or Windows-XP.

Our general advice is that for most users upgrades to later releases should be strongly considered. This is 2002-era software.

Buying/Upgrading a System

The quick advice: If you are using Dragon 7, we strongly recommend a system faster than 2GHz, with at least 512MB RAM. Going slower than that won't be economic over the long run, though the software will run OK for some special purposes or for patient people even down to the minimum 500MHz with 256MB RAM. For a desktop, get a SoundBlaster Live! or SoundBlaster Audigy sound card or use USB audio. For a laptop, plan on using a USB adapter ($39) if the on-board sound system does not meet your needs. If being used professionally for heavy dictation, move up to at least Release 10!

Making Corrections

• Use the mouse/keyboard!
• Corrections for Recorded Speech

Vocabulary Builder

For most cases, use the hidden vocbldr.exe file in the Programs directory for NaturallySpeaking instead of the "Add Words from Documents" or the automatic vocabulary optimizer. Just execute it. Why?

Vocabulary Builder™ was important enough to Dragon Systems to trademark back in 1997. It is still important today. It may take longer to use vocbldr.exe, but you will save time in the long run with better accuracy.

Special Vocabularies & Phrase Lists

• Legal
  • Dictating to Your Computer by Judge Thomas C. Smith, Provincial Court of British Columbia (200KB download, Word format, 25 pages, revised January 2002), posted by permission of Judge Smith.

• Maricopa County -- Legal, Medical, and General Words for the metropolitan Phoenix area

• Mathematics -- For high school mathematics through post-graduate study, MathTalk with Scientific Notebook handles your needs for mathematical notation. See www.mathtalk.com for details. Some persons use TeX/LaTeX with NaturallySpeaking effectively after using VocEdit to change punctuation properties.

Odds & Ends

• Technical Tips -- a set of general tips on NaturallySpeaking and closely-related topics, generally appropriate for geeks.
• Using NaturallySpeaking with other Speech Recognition Programs
• Visually Impaired Usage with JAWS (not yet available for Release 7)
• Audio Feedback for Verification of Commands
• Pitfalls, Warnings, Shortcomings

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

CPU Speed, RAM: Release 7 REQUIRES a 500MHz or faster CPU and 128MB (Preferred, Standard) or 256MB (Pro, Medical, Legal) RAM minimum. These are enforced by the installation software.

WordPerfect: Release 7 support is limited to WordPerfect 10. That is, some files one would expect for WP9 or WP8 support are not included.

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Updated July 2011